Things and things - 3rd week of April 2011 edition

Things I'm excited about this week:

• Amazon announced that they're changing/updating the Kindle formatting to allow users to download e-books from public libraries. HALELUJAH!!!!!!!!
• Gossip Girl returned this week and made me realize how much I missed it.

• I haven't talked about the new season of America's Best Dance Crew yet, but so far season 6 is shaping up nicely. I'm already totally in the bag for the Footworkingz crew, and who the hell could guess that D-Trix (aka Dominic Sandoval from Season 3/7 of So You Think You Can Dance) would make such a great judge. He gives constructive and intelligent feedback, can really come from a different place than Lil' Mama and JC because he was an ABDC contestant and winner as part of the Season 3 champs Quest Crew, and seems genuinely excited to be there (ahem Omarion) and not at all condescending (Omarion). And D-Trix so far isn't nearly as spazzy and annoying as he can be when he's hammed it up on SYTYCD in the past. If I can't have my Shane Sparks back, I'll settle for Dom. Other improvements this season have been that so far there's been NO Layla Kayleigh. I never understood her role or the need for another semi-host on this show. This sixth season is the "season of the superstar" or some nonsense, and will focus each week on a different artist's music (instead of also including dance styles like in previous seasons?). For the first 2 episodes the artists themselves introduced the song packages and while they were both kind of wacky (seriously, are Lil' Wayne and Ke$ha on drugs ALL the time?), having the musicians there via videotape made a lot more sense than Layla Kayleigh and her annoying British accent.

• Justified kind of ROCKED MY WORLD this week. My boyfriend Timothy Olyphant was superb as usual as Deputy Raylan Givens, but this week also featured the underappreciated Deputy Tim as a major part of the A plot. After the attempt on Raylan and Winona's lives, Chief Mullen assigns Tim to be Raylan's bodyguard. Of course with halirious results. On any other show, Jacob Pitts would be a star; he infuses Tim with such a laconic, wry dependability. But thems the breaks I guess. When you have the hotness of Olyphant to compete with, you can't help but fade to the background. Last night's ep was totally torn from the pages of my fantasy slash fanfic. See also: Walton Goggins as Boyd Crowder. Hubba hubba...

Things that intrigued me this week (for good or bad):

• James Frey is going back on Oprah?! I was one of the few folks out there that were always in Frey's corner when it came to the debacle over the validity of his memoir A Million Little Pieces and the subsequent dressing down and humiliation that he was subjected to by Oprah back in 2006 (geez, was that really 5 years ago?!). Winfrey's patronizing, holier-than-thou attitude and anger towards Frey was the beginning of my now strong hatred of Oprah. Even after hearing that she later apologized to Frey, I couldn't forgive her for being such a pretentious ass to him. Here's hoping that this final appearance for him on her show will be enlightening and triumphant for Frey. He kind of deserves it. He's had a shitty couple of years.

• The horrifying news on April 20th of the deaths of journalists Tim Hetherington (pictured above) and Chris Hondros and this article on NPR.org have been on my mind. If you haven't seen the Oscar-nominated documentary Restrepo, that Hetherington co-directed with Sebastian Junger please rent it or stream it today.

Things that made me want to punch something/one:

This kid -

Seriously. Stop singing country songs. Stop being the smarmiest smarm that ever smarmed; you're only 17 for crissakes! Stop holding the microphone like a flute with both hands. JUST STOP everything. And America, stop fawking voting for this douchebag.

This huge asshole -

I do not f*cking understand what is wrong with so many damn people in this country. Why on Earth would you ever listen to anything this fawkwad would have to say about running the United States of America? WTF?! He is so ridiculous and enraging. One can only hope that everything indeed plays out as many pundits are predicting, that this whole Trump 2012 campaign nonsense will blow over soon. When even Karl fawking Rove lambasts you, you have to know something's wrong.

Reality TV catch-up: early April 2010

America's Best Dance Crew - the fifth season ended with a deserving final 2, but with the wrong crew crowned champion in my humble opinion.

While Poreotix were awesome little poppin' and lockin' munchkins, Montreal's Blueprint Cru totally deserved to win and were totally robbed of the championship. I think they absolutely suffered from the fact that Canadians couldn't vote, and the fact that a lot of the kids that watch/vote ABDC are strangely loyal to the West coast crews. They've been victorious for most, if not all of the seasons. Check out Sling.com's blog post about the show - they love ABDC even more than I do.

Amazing Race Season 16 - Who knew that I'd end up cheering the most for the two teams of brothers?! Seriously, I don't care who wins this season. I really hope that Jeff and Jordan are at the finale party (TARcon) in NYC next month.

Real World/Road Rules Challenge: Fresh Meat 2 - oh my God this show! Every season gets more fawking ridiculous. But I still can't help watching and loving the hell of these dumbasses! It could have something to do with the big galoomp above right here - I love me some Kenny. No matter how misogynistic, scheming, dastardly, and douchey he gets, I always love him; it's because he's in on his own joke - he totally embraces how ridiculous he is and he doesn't care. God love him.

Project Runway - As usual I looked at and over analyzed the 2010 Fashion Week collections back in February trying to determine who was a real finalist and who was a decoy collection. I guessed pretty well, totally having predicted this season's top 4.

I really really really want Seth Aaron to win, but I also wouldn't mind Jay. Despite his ENORMOUSLY inflated ego, I've liked almost all of the work Emilio has done this season but his fashion week collection is so damn lame. Like "Meredith Viera shops at Chico's" boring. And I hate everything about Mila's point of view so bleh. Which means that she'll probably win the whole thing.

Seriously, except for Jay McCarrol's win in the first season (and somewhat Sibilia's S3 controversial win), I've never been truly satisfied with any of the PR ultimate winners.

Go Seth Aaron FTW!

This Week's Reality TV obsession

As a super-fan of So You Think You Can Dance, and really all dance competition shows, I've known about MTV's own dance show America's Best Dance Crew (oh, I'm sorry "Randy Jackson presents:" America's Best Dance Crew) since it's first season. SYTYCD choreographers Shane Sparks and "Nappy Tabs" have both been a part of the show, and most famously the ABDC's first winners the Jaberwockys have gone on to become a pretty famous dance crew.
In previous seasons I've just been able to catch a couple of episodes here and there, and I've never really had a chance to attach myself to a particular group.

All that's changed in season 5. Just by chance I was able to catch a rerun of the first episode of this new season and have enjoyed every second since then. What I like about ABDC is that it begins with a regional sort of semi-finals; so there's no annoying "audition rounds" and we just get to see quality dancing right from the get go. It would be like if American Idol or SYTYCD started right off with Hollywood week.
After each regional competition the judges decide who gets to move on to Nationals; this is where America jumps in to vote. At the beginning of each show host Mario Lopez announces the crews who garnered enough votes and are safe that week; as he reveals this we're then treated to each team's routine for that week's challenge. When it gets down to the bottom 2 teams, they each battle it out using their routines or another routine that they're asked to prepare ahead of time.
The judges then decide who of the two crews is safe for the week.

Okay, let's talk about this season's judges. JC Chasez (yes, the dude from N Sync) and dancer/hip-hop choreographer/rapper Lil Mama have been mainstay staples since the beginning. Past seasons have had awesome Shane Sparks as a judge, Tabitha & Napoleon, and other choreographers have also sat in.
This season they went with singer Omarion as the third judge. I dislike Omarion. He's annoying. He was in that stupid hip-hop boy band B2K right? Were they known for their dance moves? Is he now, as a solo artist famous for being a good dancer? Because he sure as hell acts like he's God's gift to hip-hop dance movement. He sits there with this super smug look on his face at all times and is usually really condescending to the contestants. And often his critiques make no sense. I want Shane Sparks back! If he's not doing this show that better mean he's back on SYTYCD dammit!

Anyway, this week was the Lady Gaga challenge for all of the crews. But first Mario announced that there was some fuck up with the television voting so they weren't going to have a bottom 2 or eliminate any team this week, but will be getting rid of two teams next week.
Oooh I bet some of these crews were thanking their lucky stars that the phone lines got jacked up (I'm looking at you Saltare). I'll give some highlights on my favorite crews this season.

Static Noyze - these kids are the arty theatrical (read "gay"/fag hag) ones from Cambridge, MA. I LOVE them. Their style is like if Bob Fosse and Lil' C had a child. You know that scene in The Birdcage where Robin William's character is hilariously going through all the choreography styles? - Fosse Fosse Fosse, Martha Graham Martha Graham, Madonna Madonna Madonna - well Static Noyze takes that and adds hip-hop and poppin' & lockin' to mix as well. This Gaga challenge was right up their alley and they felt a ton of pressure. The song that they were assigned was Gaga's "Beautiful Dirty Rich". One of their main dancers is this little Filipino boy name Pete who totally rocked the drag (dancing in heels!), taking the Gaga role and being awesome as usual.

The next group that I like this season is Blue Print Cru from Montreal Canada. Now, Canada can't vote, so each week I worry about these guys getting enough votes, and considering that last week they were in the bottom, I definitely think they benefited from the vote screw up. They got "Bad Romance" which I think is one of the more danceable tracks. But this eclectic mixed gender crew is very structured, and their routines have all of these precise movements so I wasn't sure if they'd be able to translate Gaga's disjointed "Bad Romance" choreography. I shouldn't have worried. They were AWESOME. JC and Lil' Mama both proclaimed it was the best routine of the season. Even Omarion had to grudgingly give it up to them (although with a total backhanded compliment as is his wont). And they were the only team to get immunity for next week. Well deserved y'all.

And I want to give a quick shout-out to the 2 all male crews that I usually don't pay that much attention to - my big boys in Heavy Impact, and the poppin' robots Poreotix. I thought they'd suck at this challenge but they did pretty well considering.